The climate change denial book of the year, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, has attracted a fair amount of abuse (see this great layman's review in the Daily Harold; or this scientific parsing from RealClimate.Org), but one of the authors' sons has posted a legitimate objection to the DeSmogBlog's early response that the book was the work of paid oil industry apologists.

In an email correspondence today, Alex Avery, a research director at the Exxon-funded Hudson Institute, said: “The book by (Alex's father) Dennis and Fred (Singer) was done entirely on funding from Wallace Sellers, a Hudson board member. There’s ZERO oil industry money behind it and your accusation is a desperate, factless assertion that is made because you can’t make a substantive science argument to refute Dr. Singer’s and Dennis’ claim that the warming we’ve observed over the 20th century is part of the natural climate cycles readily observed in the geologic/historical record.

… , libelous (the DeSmogBlog apologizes unreservedly) and unhelpful in moving the debate any further.

While Singer’s record of speaking falsehoods is well established, I personally know of no evidence to suggest that the Averys are anything more than delusional: they appear to suffer from what Al Gore describes as the problem of having to believe the things on which your livelihood relies.

As for Femack’s query as to why Alex Avery would raise the funding issue, I think it must be necessary in his line of work to build little Chinese walls in his brain, imagining that there is a legitimate separation between the money his think-tank employer accepts from industry on one hand and the (coincidentally!?) industry-friendly policy positions that he develops on the other.

Anyway, if anyone actually has proof of the Averys’ perfidy (beyond the ideologically driven intellectual dishonesty evident in the book) please, please send it along. Otherwise, in a world where good people often do bad things, I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

I think you are right, Richard. There seems to be a deeply rooted fear behind a lot of the deniers’ rhetoric and keeping the construction of their delusion intact must be a complicated mental exercise. Every time a new piece of research threatens their position, they have to scramble to shore it up. Perhaps I have underestimated them.

Alex Avery is a vehement supporter of GM crops and is opposed to organic farming. He has told obvious falsehoods during the attempt by Monsanto and other GMO promoters to smear the work of Quist and Chapela on the GM maize contamination in Mexico. Here is a quote from gmwatch.org:

“(Alex) Avery dismissed Quist and Chapela’s peer-reviewed study as ‘junkscience’ and argued that the attacks on the researchers were not unethical mudslinging, but ‘exactly the type of rigorous debate over the truth that is the hallmark of the scientific process and discourse’. A joint statement duly followed and proved influential in the campaign to force Nature to retract the paper.

The attacks on Quist and Chapela were subsequently shown to have been initiated and fuelled by the biotech industry - in particular, by Monsanto, notably via its ‘Andura Smetacek’ e-mail front, and by its PR company, The Bivings Group, which operated the e-mail front ‘Mary Murphy’. Avery followed ‘Murphy’ in making specific reference to Chapela’s membership of the board of Pesticide Action Network North America and in claiming that this raised questions about Chapela’s scientific work”.

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=14&page=A

Another bunch of lies by Aex Avery:

“I challenge Jeffery Smith to name one danger presented to consumers from biotech crops that is greater than the normal food safety risks we all face. Not “maybes” and “mights”, but a documented and existing danger.

He cannot do it. Foods from biotech crops have not caused even a hiccup, and are the most tested in human history”.

Why would this fellow even bother to respond when it is so simple to make the connection between Sellers & gas? Did he really think we wouldn’t check? If that’s the extent of his intellectual abilities he must have got the job because of his dad.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.